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JFK Guard To Speak At Christmas Honors

The Secret Service agent who guarded the Kennedy family before and after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy will speak at this year’s Christmas Honors ceremony, event organizer Philip Merry confirmed.

Clint Hill, 80, was riding in the car behind the Kennedys in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, and leaped onto the back of their limousine after the first of three fatal shots struck the president. Unable to shield JFK from the shots, he wrapped the dying president’s head with his jacket, pulled the panicked Jackie Kennedy into her seat and covered the couple with his body as the vehicle sped to the hospital. After the assassination, Hill continued to guard Jackie Kennedy and her children until after the 1964 election.

The Fort Smith Christmas Honors event will be Hill’s first stop on a national book tour. He recently published a memoir called “Mrs. Kennedy and Me,” with Lisa McCubbin, who is also credited on his 2010 memoir, “The Kennedy Detail.”

Merry, who initiated the event as a committee leader with the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the way he came across Hill is quite a story, given that Christmas Honors has never had a speaker and he wasn’t looking for one.

The story began in the summer, when he was at Lake Ouachita and decided to update his Facebook page.

“I typed in ‘Philip Merry’ and a photo of another person named Philip Marry popped up. … He was from Sydney, Australia,” Merry recalled. In a very brief exchange of notes, the two Merrys told each other their professions.

“He said he owned a speakers bureau, and I said I’m an insurance guy. ‘Have a nice life’,” Merry said.

Then a couple of “connect the dots” events ensued, he said: In July he heard from someone in Florida who wanted to make an anonymous donation to Christmas Honors. And then an agent with the Nashville-based Premiere Speakers Bureau, a U.S. branch of the Australian’s company, contacted him.

The agent, named Brian Elliott, told Merry he had a speaker who was “enthralled” with Fort Smith’s Christmas Honors program and the community’s obvious respect for veterans, and the speakers bureau could make him available for costs, without charging a fee.

Merry said he called a friend and asked him to match the anonymous donation promised in July, then called Elliott back.

“I said, ‘If we have the money, who’s the speaker?” Merry recalled.

As the last surviving passenger of the Kennedy limousine, Hill has special insights into the actual events as well as conspiracy theories, Merry said.

Hill will speak at 11 a.m. Dec. 8 during a ceremony following the wreath placements that will include a National Guard flyover, a color guard presentation and a gun salute.

Merry said more than 1,700 volunteers assembled and prepared wreaths the day before the event last year, and many were veterans who shared their war memories while working together.